There are a few lessons to glean from the Surprise Index, which I was only made aware of this week. First, predictions are often reported as news. They’re not. They’re predictions, and they’re almost always wrong. Full disclosure: I’ve been as guilty as anyone for breathlessly passing along predictions without the qualifying them as conjecture. Second, to be fair to the analysts, sometimes the first draft of the economic figures aren’t any better than the predictions. A great example: We initially estimated GDP falling 3.8% in the last three months of 2008. Instead, it fell nearly 9%. That’s a horrible miscalculation that had a real impact on decisions made by Congress and the Federal Reserve to fix the economy. I wonder what the Economic Surprise Index would say about first readings of GDP and unemployment numbers.
(via emergentfutures)
My favourite piece of tech of all time - Twine : Listen to your world, talk to the Internet (by Supermechanical)
This is not only awesome, it is a taste of the things to come in the tech industry.
Where’s the “Learn This” Button?
Learning needs to be more personalized. We all know this. But rarely does anyone describe a practical way actually to accomplish that goal. This presentation will delineate not only how we can (and will) do it, but will up the stakes, arguing that learning could be measured (gasp!) outside of educational institutions, with learners free to gobble up knowledge as they roam the Internet following their changing interests.
Maria Andersen (by ACU)
Personalized learning on the web. Definitely a new and exciting market I believe! So much potential with the current trends we are seeing (re: openness, lecture casting, etc).
Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customer’s use or by creating uncertainty.
Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company. For example, prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe. — Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve, a game and entertainment company (think: Half-Life and Portal), via an interview with the Cambridge Student. (via futurejournalismproject)
Pirate? Or simply looking for convenience?
